Trailblazing Brisbane outfit The Purple Hearts were one of the
most original and individual Australasian bands of the mid-60s. It's
currently fashionable to pigeonhole bands like the Hearts as
“garage” or “punk”, but this is
a misnomer. The Purple Hearts were dyed-in-the-wool blues/R&B
fanatics who took the original influences and gave them their own
unique spin. In this they followed the example of the emerging wave of
British bands like The Animals, The Pretty Things, The Kinks, The
Yardbirds, The Rolling Stones and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.

The Purple Hearts were one of the very first bands in
Australia to perform this style of music. Like those famous UK bands,
they idolized and drew their inspiration from the legendary American
soul, blues and R&B masters like John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters,
Willie Dixon, Ray Charles, James Brown and Wilson Pickett. The
Hearts are also noteworthy as the first major outing for
one of Australia's original guitar heroes, Lobby Loyde.
Acknowledged as the godfather of heavy rock in Australia, Lobby has
influenced countless performers both here and overseas through his
playing and songwriting as well as his production work.

The Purple Hearts were one of the top live acts of their day,
and fortunately they are immortalized by five incomparable singles that
are now acknowledged around the world as Sixties rock classics. The
band's
uncompromising style led to them being branded as archetypal
“bad boys” by the media, and this image was no
doubt fuelled by their name, which of course derived from the
amphetamine 'pep' pills that were a staple
recreational drug in the early-mid 60s, and the drug of choice for the
Mod crowd. Mick Hadley says he never really indulged in drugs although
he says some of the other guys did; certainly Lobby freely admitted
that he had
tried just about every drug there is at one time or another ... and
sometimes several at once!

Whether real or manufactured, all the controversy and their
‘take-no-prisoners' approach helped to set them apart from
most other bands of the day. “We were like the Public Enemy
of 1962 ... we were pretty radical” singer Mick Hadley
recalled. One famous incident saw them supposedly banned by a Melbourne
girls' school, although Mick later dismissed this as
“…a press beat up ... Some girls sneaked out from
school or something and came to see us rehearse. It's a good
story.”

The Purple Hearts evolved from Brisbane R&B band, The
Impacts, which was formed by young English migrant Bob Dames with local
musicians Adrian "Red" Redmond and guitarists Michael
Riddington and Les Binns in late 1963. Not long after, another expat
Brit, R&B/blues fanatic and aspiring singer Mick Hadley, met
the group through a work social club and joined the band. Mick was an
early fan of John Mayall and Graham Bond who had experienced the
burgeoning London R&B
and blues scene at first hand, seeing the likes of of Cyril
Davies Allstars and Blues By Six there before emigrating to
Australia in
late 1962.

Mick's arrival helped to steer the band decisively
towards R&B and blues, and this direction was
reninforced by subsequent changes in the band. In late 1964 Les Binns
left the group and was replaced by guitarist
Barry Lyde
(from The Stillettos), who at 20 was already something of a veteran on
the Brisbane pop scene. Barry — or Lobby
Loyde, as he was known from the mid-60s — started
out like so many guitar heroes
under the all-pervasive influence of The Shadows' Hank Marvin, as Mick
Hadley recalled in this 1992 interview with James Pierce and Robert
Smith:

"Lobby Loyde — well
he came from a Shadows-type background, so he would have been
influenced by Hank Marvin. People like Les Paul, Chet Atkins, but then
as soon as he heard Clapton, he sort of picked up a lot off Clapton.
Blues Breakers, yeah and of course The Yardbirds. That was sort of like
a bible — the John Mayall album where they're all reading
‘Beano' on the cover … because everyone learnt
every lick on that particularly album and Five Live
Yardbirds too, so there was a lot of their
influences there.”

Shortly after Lobby joined, rhythm guitarist Michael
Riddington departed, so Mick Hadley recruited a friend, Paul
Steffen (from local covers band BJ & The Senators) whom he had
met when he landed a job
at ABC's Brisbane TV station, ABQ-2. Steffen's first gig with
the group, at Broadbeach Surf Club, was in fact their last as The
Impacts, and at that point they renamed themselves The Purple
Hearts, a name devised by Bob Dames. Paul's Steffen's role in
the early days of the group was not properly known until
late 2006, when he contacted the Half A Cow label following the release
of
their Purple Hearts compilation CD. He recalled:

"Mick, Bob Dames and I eventually got a
flat together on Sylvan
Road in Toowong where Clive
would doss down when in town from his job as an Arts teacher at Scots
College in Warwick. It was a pretty frantic time, what with rehearsals
in Red's (Adrian) father's warehouse in South Brisbane, regular gigs
and all of us trying to also hold down day jobs. Still I would not have
missed it for the world and consider it a great privilege to have had
the chance to play and be friends with Mick, Bob, Adrian and of course
everyone's guitar hero, Lobby, who finally received some long overdue
recognition at the Hall of Fame inductions. I still remember how he and
I used to swap guitars for different numbers, having to adjust to the
different weight and balance of his Jaguar and how we always had access
to the latest gear largely courtesy of Lobby's job at the Moorvale
Music Centre at Moorooka."

At about the same time that Steffen joined, the band also met another
young music-obsessed English expat, Clive Murray White, who soon became
a close friend and 'style adviser' to the group -- indeed, Mick
Hadley's website reveals that the cover photo of the Sound of The Purple
Hearts EP cover shows everyone in the group wearing at least one article of Clive's clothing!

Clive
Murray White: "I was an art student in Guildford,
and like every English art student of the time could play Cyril Davies'
"Country Line Special". We used to go to the local Ricky Tick Club; the
regular bands on that circuit other than the old black guys that were
going around were The Rolling Stones, original Yardbirds, Cyril Davies,
Animals, Graham Bond Organisation. Zoot Money, Pretty Things, Manfred
Mann, Georgie Fame and so on. We also used to go to Eel Pie Island to
see Long John Baldry and up to town to see the Downliners Sect. I
arrived in Australia from England on 25 January 1965 and shortly
after I turned up at the Broadbeach Surf Club where a band was playing.
Needless to say I was wearing clothes that I had brought out and was
dancing like they did in UK. I was given a handful of free beer tickets
for my dancing efforts and was soon in deep conversation with the band.
The band played 50/50 surf and British. I learned later [that] anybody
who was
obviously from UK was approached and grilled about what was going on
over there -- vital info such as bands don't wear uniform clothes
anymore. I brought many records to Australia with me including "Long
Legged Baby", my favourite Graham Bond memory "Early in the Morning",
Yardbirds, Stones first album, Downliners Sect, Georgie Fame, Pretty
Things, compilations etc.

The Hearts immediately added some of the more obscure numbers
from Clive's collection to their repertoire and took to wearing their
(often outlandish) street clothes on stage. The Hearts played
frequently around Brisbane and the Gold Coast and had a residency at
The Primitif Club in Brisbane's Picadilly Arcade
— a gig they regularly shared with The Five
—- cutting their teeth on covers of UK R&B
groups like The Rolling Stones, The Pretty Things, The Kinks, Graham
Bond Organisation, Spencer Davis Group and The Animals. The John
Mayall's Bluesbreakers' "Beano" album (with Eric Clapton) exerted an
especially strong influence on Lobby, while Mick intently
absorbed every influence he could from black American blues and
R&B performers.

The Purple Hearts quickly
established themselves as one of the most radical bands on the staid
Brisbane scene. Along with Lobby's incendiary guitar work, the intense
stage presence and down'n'dirty soul delivery of Mick Hadley was a
focal point of the band's performance.

Mick Hadley: "Well
James Brown was probably my greatest influence, I
suppose I picked up my style from a lot of different people you know
... the Wilson Picketts and Otis Reddings ... if I could only be as
good as they were! It's hard to say where your major influence is. It's
sort of like a blend of all different people really."

RS: "Phil May?"
(Pretty
Things)

MH: "Phil May. Well,
Phil was ... well we did his material and you might copy a few
reflections, but he wasn't black enough for me. I tried to copy the
black people."

At this time they were managed by one of "countless budding
Brian Epsteins", Dal
Myles (who went on to become a promoter and MC in Sydney and
later joined Sydney TV station TEN-10 as a newsreader). However the
band soon fell out with Myles over financial issues and they
parted company.

The group first ventured into the studio in early 1965 to cut
four tracks at the newly opened Soundtrack Studios, Brisbane's
first independent commercial studio, which operated from a
disused bakery in the suburb of Cannon Hill. Two of these recordings a
cover of Graham Bond's "Long
Legged Baby", backed by a version of Them's "Gloria" were issued as the
group's first single. Around this time young guitarist Glenn
Wheatley (later of The Masters
Apprentices) would sit in occasionally on rhythm guitar,
but did not record with the group.

Paul Steffen's tenure in the group was abruptly terminated by
his
call-up for National Service in August 1965, and he was subsequently
replaced by Scottish-born guitarist Fred Pickard. Just after Fred
joined, the group joined The
Easybeats, Vince Maloney, Tony Worsley & The
Fabulous Blue Jays, Ian Saxon and others on marathon north
Queensland tour from Brisbane to Cairns and back, which was
the first ever 'beat band' tour of those areas.
Entrepreneur Ivan Dayman,
who organised the shows, immediately saw The Purple
Hearts potential and soon signed them to his Sunshine
label. Their first Sunshine single (recorded at Festival studios in
Sydney) was a re-recording of "Long Legged Baby" backed by a
new B-side, "Here 'Tis",
which was released in October 1965; thanks to their dedicated following
in their hometown, it made the Top 10 in Brisbane.

For the remainder of 1965, Dayman kept the band busy
promoting the single and holding down a residency at the Brisbane Bowl,
one of the chain of venues he owned. By early 1966 the Hearts
were looking south to the major markets of Sydney and Melbourne and
their first big break came when they scored the opening spot on the
Sydney leg of the Herman's Hermits/Tom Jones Caravan of Stars
tour promoted by Harry
M. Miller, plus more gigs at Dayman's Sydney Bowl.
However, just before the tour Red Redmond was badly injured in
a car accident that smashed both his legs, so he had to be replaced --
permanently as it turned out -- by
Tony Cahill. Although the original intention was for Red to return to
the band when he had recuperated, by the time he was back on his feet
Cahill had become so entrnched in teh band that they didn' want to lose
him, but they remained on good terms with Red, who went on to establish
the Red Orb venue in Brisbane, (where the band would play their final
gig in early 1967).

After several hectic weeks in Sydney which saw them play
at the Bowl in Castlereagh St, the Pavilion, and the Caravan of
Stars show at the Hordern
Pavilion on Jan 21 & 22, 1966, the group decided to
relocate to Melbourne. Before they left Sydney, the Hearts
went back into Festival
studios and recorded the tracks for their second single, "Of Hopes
Dreams Tombstones" b/w "I'm Gonna Try" (released in February 1966),
which were produced by Pat
Aulton, who had overseen big hits for other
Sunshine artists including Normie Rowe and Tony Worsley. It was Pat who
directed the band to an obscure American soul 45 which, when rearranged
by the Hearts, became one of the wildest Aussie singles of all
time.

In Melbourne, they soon established
themselves as one of the top acts on the
city's booming dance
and discotheque circuit, with their popularity boosted by
frequent
TV appearances on It's
All Happening, The
Go!! Show and Kommotion
and regular
coverage in Everybody's and Go-Set
magazine. The group also made the arduous trek back to Brisbane to open
for The Rolling Stones on their second tour in February 1966.
Alongside innumerable suburban dance gigs, the Hearts were
regular headliners at famed Melbourne discos The Thumpin' Tum, Sebastians and The
Red Door. They often shared a stage and became mates with Max Merritt & The Meteors,
The Twilights, Running Jumping Standing Still and
the (Mark I) Wild Cherries.
According
to Mick they had a friendly rivalry with The Twilights over
who was the best band on the circuit.

Their third Sunshine single was the extraordinary "Early in
the Morning"
(August 1966), a unique, bizarre amalgam of sea shanty and heavy
psychedelia recorded at the new Armstrong's
Studios in Melbourne with Roger
Savage at the controls. Despite being one of the most radical
Australian pop
singles ever released, the Hearts' following was sufficient to propel
"Early
in the Morning" to #10 in Melbourne, a fact which also speaks
volumes for the support that Melbourne radio was offering to
local acts at that time. Both tracks have been anthologized on many
‘60s compilations and are regularly hailed as key examples of
the 60s “garage-punk” genre — although
"Early
in the Morning" arguably exists in a category all its
own. Fortunately,
one of their Go!! Show appearances
from this period still exists, in which the
group mime to both sides of their latest 45, "Just a Little
Bit" and "Early in the Morning".

Their next single, '"You can't sit down" b/w "Tiger in your
tank" was again recorded at Armstrong Studios with Roger Savage, and
released in January 1967. Late in the year Sunshine issued the EP, The
Sounds of the Purple Hearts, which combined the
tracks from the first two Sunshine singles. But on 23 January 1967
Go-Set published a press release by the band, stating that they had
ceased to progress
musically, felt they were stagnating and had decided to
split.

Mick:
"We felt we'd gone as far as we could go, we just ran out of gas. It
was
good fun while it lasted. Although the Hearts put up a united front it
seems Lobby had seen the writing on the wall and instigated the split
on the eve of an Adelaide tour! Lobby went straight into the reformed
Wild Cherries and was gigging with them immediately, while the others
carried on as a four-piece for a month or so, filling the outstanding
engagements. Fred, now the sole guitarist, really starred in these
shows and with David Bentley from Python Lee Jackson added on
keyboards for the last ever gigs back in Brisbane, their sound would
have been quite different to the Lobby fuelled Hearts. The final gig
was at Red's Red Orb club in late February 1967."

A final single "'Chicago"' b/w "Bring it on home" was released
in April, three months after the split, but still managed respectable
sales. Since their demise, The Purple Hearts have come to occupy an
honoured place in Australian rock history, and their recordings have
been anthologised on many compilations including Raven's Sixties Downunder
series. In 2007 Half A Cow Records released the definitive Purple
compilation CD, which includes their first four Soundtrack Studios
recordings and all the tracks from their Sunshine singles, plus a bonus
ofseven unreleased tracks from 1969-70 recorded by the original Coloured Balls, featuring Mick
Hadley and Bob Dames, plus a
36-page booklet that includes rare photos by Go-Set staff photographer Colin Beard.

After The Purple Hearts …

- Tony Cahill travelled to the UK where in
early 1968 he was selected from dozens of hopefuls to replace Snowy
Fleet in The Easybeats. He remained with the band until they split at
the end of 1969.

- Mick Hadley travelled to the UK on the overland trail
through Asia for a
year, erporting for Go-Set on his journey. On his return to Australia
in early 1968 he was recruited to join Rob Lovett (ex-Wild Cherries, Loved Ones) and Malcolm McGee
(ex-Wild Cherries, Python Lee Jackson) in The
Virgil Brothers but he quit after only a couple of
weeks'
rehearsal, to be replaced by his old Sunshine label-mate Peter Doyle. Mick then
reunited with Bob Dames in Brisbane to form a new R&B band
called Coloured Balls with Sam Shannon (vocals), Robbie Van Delft
(guitar; ex-Mike Furber & The
Bowery Boys) and Peter Miles (drums; ex-Bay City
Union). Coloured Balls were part of the from the same scene
as Bay City Union, Black Cat Circle, The Chelsea Set and Thursday's
Children. They gigged around Brisbane until the end of 1969, but did
not record. In 1970, Dames and Miles moved to Melbourne where they
joined Mick Rogers (ex-Procession) in the short-lived power trio
Bulldog.
Through the 1970s and ‘80s, Mick formed a succession of
R&B bands. He recorded the album Let's Dance
(comprising all R&B covers) with Mick Hadley's Last Shout in
1988, and Butt Out in 1995 with
Mick Hadley and the Shakers. He is still performing regularly and in
late 2007 backed Wendy Saddington
in a rare concert appearance.

- Lobby Loyde (who was a
distant descendant of Oscar Wilde) is now hailed as the
“godfather of heavy rock” in Australia. Among those
who have cited Lobby as an influence are his old mate Billy Thorpe,
Nirvana's Kurt Cobain, Pavement's Stephen Malkmus (who covered The
Coloured Balls "That's What Mama Said"), Henry
Rollins (who owns all Lobby's recordings), Bored! and Cosmic Psychos.
After leaving The Purple Hearts Lobby spent about two years carving out
a similarly iconoclastic niche in the Mark II Wild Cherries until their
split in late 1968. This was followed by a brief but crucial tenure as
a member of Billy Thorpe's new
Aztecs in 1969-70, included the recording of their landmark LP The Hoax Is Over. Lobby then put together a shortlived
“new” Wild Cherries in 1970, releasing one single,
"I Am The Sea". In 1971 he recorded the acclaimed Plays
with George Guitar solo LP and worked with former
Loved Ones lead singer Gerry Humphries in Gerry & The Joy Band.

In 1972 Lobby took over the The Coloured Balls
name for his own band, although it had no other connection to Mick
Hadley's group. Tagged, for better or worse, as a
“sharpie” band and criticized by the media for
supposedly inciting violence, The Coloured Balls were a favourite on
the pub and festival circuit and an undoubted influence on later bands
like Rose Tattoo. From 1972 until their demise in 1974 they released
six singles and three LPs, Ball Power,
Heavy Metal Kid and First
Supper Last (originally recorded in 1972) as well
as performing with Billy Thorpe and others on the Sunbury '73 live
album Summer Jam.

Lobby then went solo again releasing the single "Do
You Believe in Magic" (1975) and the acclaimed Obsecrationalbum
(1976). Lobby then left Australia, in part because he was angered with
the media's connection his music and sharpie violence. He spent
about two years in the UK (1976-79)
where he
embraced punk and New Wave and sat in on recording sessions with
Siouxsie &
The
Banshees, The Police and Roxy Music.

In June 1976, just before moving to the UK, Lobby and Southern
Electric recorded the music for a proposed concept album, Beyond Morgia: The Labyrinths of Klimster,
which was taped
and mixed over the course of a single weekend at Armstrong's Studios,
with tape operator Tony Cohen engineering and mixing. Lobby intended
the music as the soundtrack for a proposed sci-fi film, which was to be
based on an unpublished novel he had written. Lobby burned the manuscript the day before he left for the UK and no
film was ever made of the story, but fortunately the long-lost master tapes of the album were recently found
and remastered, and the album was released on CD by Aztec Music in Feb. 2007.

On his
return to Australia he
joined Rose Tattoo as bass player and that line-up of the Tatts recorded
an album in Los Angeles which has never been issued. He then formed Southern Electric, with whom he recorded the rare Live
With Dubs LP. In the ‘80s Lobby moved into production and live
sound
mixing and produced acclaimed recordings for Sunnyboys,
Kevin Borich, Machinations, Flaming Hands, X and Painters And Dockers.
He returned to the stage in the early ‘90s with the
supergroup Dirt, then concentrated on recording and
performing with his “pleasure band” Fish Tree
Mother. In late 2002 Lobby reunited The Coloured Balls to take part in
the Long Way To The Top concert tour. In October 2002 he celebrated his
40th year in music by being inducted into the Australian Blues
Foundation Hall of Fame at a special gig at the Mercury Lounge in
Melbourne, with Chain.

The chain-smoking Lobby was diagnosed with lung cancer in
2005. A benefit concert in Melbourne (at which
he played) raised $90,000 for his medical costs. He was inducted
into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2006, and fellow inductee Angry
Anderson said of him:

"More than anyone else, Lobby helped create the Australian
guitar sound. Long before Angus (Young) or Billy Thorpe or the Angels
or Rose Tattoo. Lobby inspired Australian bands to step forward and
play as loud and aggressively as they could. People are still trying to
copy it today."

In August 2006, Loyde rejoined Rose Tattoo, replacing the late Peter
Wells, who had himself died from cancer a few months earlier. Although he was by then gravely ill, Lobby recorded an
as-yet-unreleased album with the band. He died at Box Hill in Melbourne on 21 April 2007, aged 65.

The
Coloured Balls15. A Song for Jeffrey (Anderson)16. Killing Floor (Howlin Wolf)17. Living in the USA (Miller)18. Bring it on Home (Willie Dixon)19. Long Grey Mare (P.A. Green)20. Living in the Past (Jethro Tull)21. Living in the USA (Miller) live